


Winning and losing

by CrazyChicken



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Fluff, M/M, PWP without Porn, its not porn its loooooooove
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-20
Updated: 2013-11-20
Packaged: 2018-01-02 03:01:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1051745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrazyChicken/pseuds/CrazyChicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marco is in Munich for the national team training and it makes him very emotional.</p>
<p>(And when I say 'him' I mean 'me'.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winning and losing

**Author's Note:**

> so there's a lot I wanna say I'm going to try to keep it short  
> -please don't let the title/summary/notes keep you from reading, I swear it will be at least slightly better  
> -this fic is my way of procrastinating What Should Be Done  
> -I have been semi-absent in the fandom so I have no idea if im ignoring any new headcanons that were officially accepted (lol ofc not if i havent approved of them (jk im not that selfcentered))  
> -accurateness level is low, suckiness level is high  
> -these lines donot (always) depict my personal opinion (people in munich aren't (always) assholes)  
> -errors are proof of my emotions rather than proof of my stupidity  
> -I slept four hours in the last 48 hours (=8.3%)  
> -I don't know if this amount of fluffyotpcuteness will make you barf or cry but a bucket will do in both cases

Marco hadn’t been here in a while. Had very explicitly planned not to come here in a very long time, or at least until it was absolutely necessary. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Mario, really, but maybe it was. Seeing Mario wasn’t really the problem, though. Being in Munich wasn’t the problem either. Despite the assholes that lived and played there, it was a rather beautiful city. What bothered Marco was something beyond that, something about Mario in Munich that he couldn’t quite define.

He remembered this airport and these streets that they had walked together a few times. He paid a short visit to the Säbener Strasse, where he had been a few times before, but not too often. It was vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t help thinking that this was Mario’s new spot. These trainings grounds were the holy grounds where Mario met new people and laughed about new inside jokes and where, maybe, just very maybe, someone else would hug him just to keep him warm in the winter. It sent a stab through Marco’s chest as the idea crossed his mind.

It wasn’t even the thought of how things were right now that hurt the most. What was really nagging at him was the idea how it could have been. He knew that Mario would leave, eventually, at a point in his life where that was the best or only option, but that wasn’t this point. He kept thinking in what-ifs, wondering if there were things he could have done to keep Mario from going. The tiny things, even, like paying for his coffee more often, or waking up earlier than Mario, or even stopping to jump on top of him as a way of celebrating a goal.

He sighed and grimaced, wondering if there would be any celebrating against Italy or England. They were tough opponents, part of Marco’s brain calculated, but the other part of his brain was still only screaming that it hurt, it fucking hurt to be on the Bayern Munich training grounds and watching visions of Mario’s life intertwine with visions of how it could be right now if Mario hadn’t left.

He wouldn’t be here right now. They would be enjoying a nice lunch somewhere in a fancy restaurant because they had something to celebrate. Not really a big thing, usually, just the fact that they were still together, or the fact that the people they loved were still alive, or the fact that Mats still hadn’t shaven his moustache off. Those little things were reason enough to be intensely happy, Marco had sworn back then. But now he realised that Mats’ moustache had nothing to do with his happiness and Marco and Mario were not together anymore and he wasn’t really sure whom he really loved these days.

It was too silent. No one came to interrupt his thought, not even when he returned to the hotel. People were looking at him with knowing faces, avoiding him because knew he just really needed to be alone, even though he didn’t. He needed company and distraction and everything but loneliness, but most of all he needed those strong arms and those chubby cheeks that he could never stop kissing and the way Mario’s lips curled upwards when Marco kissed the corner of his mouth.

He was alone and nothing had really gone to plan, because avoiding Mario had not been part of the initial plan. But then September came and the season started and not making the trip to Munich that would most definitely break his heart became easier and easier, until eventually Marco was able to convince himself that visiting Mario ‘just for fun’ had never been part of the plan at all.

The problem with seeing Mario in Munich in this very setting was the fact that it was so different from how it used to be and how it therefore was right. They would have been here together in a strange city, somehow finding the way from the training grounds to the hotel and then from the hotel to their shared room (and what Marco did recall was that the hotel they were staying in had really soft beds which was a advantage of Munich above his own apartment, but that was really all). Instead Mario was somewhere in his own new place, knowing this city all too well by now and all of a sudden Marco felt like it wasn’t real. Lie he was watching some stupid movie play in front of him and it just wasn’t fair that Mario left, but it was a movie, maybe even a Disney movie, and it would all be fine in the end.

Except that it wasn’t.

Marco checked his phone and automatically went to his text conversation with Mario, realising once again the last message was one from Mario, saying “sounds like fun :)”, two months ago. He couldn’t just call, couldn’t just come by and pretend nothing had happened, Marco thought. After all, what they had been through was a lot like a breakup, although that was probably the last thing Marco wanted to think about.

He had tried to bottle it up, but Marco knew they had to face each other in the morning. Training with the national team would be fun, because he missed André and it would be fun to catch up with him and make fun of his homesickness. That is, it would have been fun if his heart didn’t explode at the thought of Mario being there and how to handle the situation and just general cluelessness.

When something in a friendship goes wrong and you have absolutely no contact for two months, you can’t just go back to the last point where it went right and pretend nothing has happened, because things between you have changed irreversibly. Marco thought he knew that for sure, but he was oh so wrong, because when his phone rang and Mario’s name lit up the screen he picked up smiling, and six months of trying to keep his distance in order to save himself from the pain, flew right out the window. Marco wouldn’t want it any other way.

 

“I’ve missed you,” Mario said, but between the pants it kind of lost its meaning and even when Marco said “I missed you too” it didn’t mean a thing anymore, but that was okay. The last few hours had made more than up for that and the eleven times that they repeated this already did too. It was like every time one of them said “I missed you” the missing became a little bit less, not because the past few months had been less terrible, but because now that they were together again, it was hard to imagine there was anything else than this.

Eventually, Mario got up out of bed and with him the heat disappeared and Marco felt the panic rise in his chest because _he’s leaving he’s leaving he’s leaving_ , but then Mario explained that he was just going to get them something to eat, which was fine, because that was how it used to be, and how it should be, and how it was right. Mario getting something to eat, offering that something to Marco, and then eating most of it himself, because he was always hungry after sex, was nothing more than an old habit. Marco didn’t mind it at all, didn’t mind watching his boyfriend eat and smile back at him every now and then, or falling asleep on Mario’s lap to the sound of his jaws chewing chips.

He refused to fall asleep this time, even though his eyes were tired. They must have been just as red as Mario’s, but that was okay. The crying had been worth it. The waiting had worth it. God, everything was worth those blissful moments when out of nowhere, Mario shot him a look that made Marco feel like the world was racing around him and they were the eye of the hurricane and god.

Mario came back wearing that adorable dark blue bathrobe of his (of course the bathrobe wasn’t _really_ the adorable part of the whole picture), a bowl of chips in his hands. He set it on Marco’s lap as he shook off the robe and crawled back in bed next to him. Marco would have been fine just sitting here and listening to the sound of cracking chips and shifting blankets and heartbeats that beat out of time and breaths that were a little louder than usual.

“You know,” Mario started after a swallowing a handful. The way his Adam’s apple moved made him think of the amazing blowjobs he could give and how Marco wouldn’t mind another round, later, after finishing this bowl of chips.

“What, _Schatz_?”

Mario didn’t really react to his using the word, because that was kind of normal since, after all, they were together.

“When you said you’d come visit me some time here I’d imagined it would be, like, in the summer and that I would show you around and we would have fun and we wouldn’t be here because of national duty.”

“This wasn’t really how I imagined it either,” Marco admitted and he fidgeted with the blankets as he tried not to look at Mario, but eventually he did, because he realised he would find no harm there. “But well. I had not really imagined you in here in the first place. In Munich I mean.”

“I know what you mean.” He ran his hands through Marco’s hair. It was more dishevelled than ever and Mario was a weird sort of proud that he had seen it turn into its current state. “I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not.” Marco laughed, but not because it was funny. He laughed because he was liberated from the pressure he had been building up for months, living in the lie that life was perfect. Somehow, admitting that life sucked sometimes, was a major relief to him.

“Okay, I’m not,” Mario admitted. “I mean, I don’t regret it. I wouldn’t do it any differently. But I’m sorry about losing you. That part will never stop being devastating to me.”

Marco was taken aback, because apparently Mario _did_ care as much about him as he did about Mario, and apparently Mario’s life had not just easily gone on without him and apparently it wasn’t over. But at the same time he was shocked, because using the word ‘losing’ to describe what happened between them had never crossed his mind.

“You didn’t lose me,” Marco was quick to say, pressing his forehead to Mario’s. “You never will.”

Mario laughed, pressing a quick kiss on his lips, and then a slightly longer one, and then he almost forgot what they were talking about.

“You can’t just get rid of me by going to Bavaria,” Marco continued whispering, as if raising his voice just a bit would break what they had now, and what they had now was finally this good. “After all the effort I put in trying to have you for myself, I’m not just letting it go this easily.”

Mario laughed again, as he recalled the subtle conversations at the end of the first few training sessions after Marco had come to Dortmund, and how he kept repeating that he broke up with Caroline and his innuendos that he was now available. And all the times they shared a hotel room. Or the way Marco laughed at his jokes. Hugged him during practice. Or on the pitch. Nearly dry humped him during games. God, Mario had been blind.

“Good,” Mario replied, and then a guilty grin spread across his face. “So from now on I don’t have to try this hard for you anymore? You will be the one to call next time, or the one to pay for my coffee? The one to get up for post-sex snacks?”

Marco smiled and reached out for the bowl, but Mario placed it out of reach. “And of course I don’t have to share all this with you if I know you’re just going to stay with me anyway,” Mario teased.

“You win,” Marco smiled, leaning over to cover as much of Mario’s body with his own as he could, kissing him softly. “You win.” Mario pushed the bowl aside and it fell of the bed when Marco pulled him down so he was lying on his back and started placing butterfly kissed all over his body, while repeating the words “you win” over and over again. It was a lot like their “I miss yous” had been. Every time Marco said it, it was a bit less true, because this wasn’t about winning at all.

Marco liked playing games but he was tired of keeping up false dignity for the entire world. He gave in because Mario was different. Mario was that place where he could be himself without any fear, or thought even. It started to dawn upon him that maybe, someday, Munich could in fact be his home, if that was where Mario preferred to stay.


End file.
